Hui Tau – Day 3: Easter
Easter morning in the Bay of Islands Glorious morning rays were breaking over the not-quite-purple east as we walked along the shore of the Bay of Islands early on Easter Sunday. As senior [...]
Hui Tau – Day 2
Initially, the only Church History missionaries assigned to attend Hui Tau 2021 in Kaikohe were Elder and Sister T (Alan and Wendy). As acquisitions and oral history specialists, they are responsible for making video and [...]
Hui Tau – Day 1
Since the mid 1830s, whenever The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has sought to expand into a new country or region of the world, it has sent proselytizing missionaries to preach, convert, and [...]
South Island Trip – Aoraki/Mount Cook to Christchurch
Having drunk nothing stronger than ice water and gone to bed before midnight the previous evening, our group of five full-time senior missionaries was able to get a reasonably early start on the first day [...]
South Island Trip – Queenstown to Aoraki/Mount Cook
Our chance for a helicopter flight over Aoraki/Mount Cook on the last day of 2020 was dependent on getting to the airfield before noon. Weeks earlier, Michael had booked a 2:30 p.m. heli-tour, but on [...]
South Island Trip – Milford Sound to Queenstown
Michael outside our chalet at Milford Sound Lodge, with the remnants of our continental breakfast Milford Sound Lodge offered guests a continental breakfast as long as it was ordered the night before. Because [...]
South Island Trip – Invercargill to Milford Sound
After we consumed our in-room breakfast of yogurt and instant oatmeal, we deposited our key cards at the unattended desk of the Quest Serviced Apartments (leaving our dirty dishes and linens for the invisible servicers) [...]
South Island Trip – Stewart Island
To adhere to our schedule for the day, we had to finish breakfast by 8:15 so we could get to the ferry terminal in Bluff, about 30 kilometres south of Invercargill, in time to catch [...]
South Island Trip – Dunedin to Invercargill
When Michael planned the schedule for this trip, he did not include attendance at a formal church service on the itinerary for Sunday 27 December, assuming that we could hold an informal devotional and gospel [...]
South Island Trip – Christchurch to Dunedin
Christchurch's beautiful Avon River Having consumed an expensive, mediocre Christmas dinner in the hotel’s dining room because we had no other choice, we weren’t interested in an expensive, mediocre Boxing Day breakfast in [...]